Hogwarts Trendgacy 2/6: Hogwart's Legacy, Grammy Awards, Kyrie Irving, Turkey & Syria Earthquakes

the movie because Prince Eric, Prince Eric, thank you. Yes, because she's about to grow some legs and be like I need some of that. No, no, no, I'm taking did not like that, isn't it? Ursula? Mr Steel, your Ariel? I guess? Yeah? Really? Yeah, so your Ariel's voice. Hey, there we go. Oh God, make her silent so that Eric can fall in love with her. Ha ha, that's the that's the trick. Because of toxic MASCULINITYA thought. Ha. She'll never find love while she's silent. But because of

toxic masculinity. Eric was like, oh my god, she's so perfect, perfect, Brian, you don't have to worry about anything, she might say. Ha ha ha ha. All right, there's there's a bunch going on the discourse. Is uh ablaze ablaze, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling. Hogworth's Legacy is trending. It has crossed my desk. Yes, I know everybody sees gaming news. What does Jack think? What's Jack kinda says about it? Is it out on switch?

Is it out on switch? The answer to that, I, of course no, but I'm not going to say it here. I appreciate that because I'm not going to date the show because I'm might one day, you know, you never know, and then evergreen where it might be right now? Uh so, Daniel, Yes, pretend I'm an idiot, so I close your eyes. Just imagine a world where I'm a complete fucking idiot. Don't know nothing. It doesn't know shit about the world of gaming. Absolutely what what? What's going on? Hogwarts Legacy? Is it

a is it a sandbox game? Is it's a very good jack? So? Hogwarts Legacy is the open world RPG developed by Avalanche Games or Avalanche Studios for all your contemporary quote unquote next gen systems. It is a Harry Potter RPG that, if you ask I g N is the game that every Harry Potter video gaming fan has

been waiting for. And I'm sure to a certain extent that there I don't know, maybe right, but the release of this game has gotten so many people to crawl out of their high holes to participate in a discourse that is absolutely fraught with bullshit and throw out takes that are completely ridiculous. And I want to talk about them very brief briefly for a little bit. And I want to start with the idea you just unrolled a whole long as scroll. You guys, when you say you

can't see, actually it goes behind me. It just rolled out the door. And then I heard some cars get into a car accident outside when it rolled into the street. So right, that's what we're dealing with. But I I seed the floor to you. I'm just gonna go go for a job. Well, I'm gonna get my soapbox out

of the way. Here longs the long story short here is that like it brings up a bunch of topics that, like you know, sometimes come to the forefront, things like separating the art from the artist, things like we need to support X person, things like well, that's the way business works and blah blah blah. All of these like trends that you know are are sometime are easier to tackle in like confined packages where it's like, you like music from this person, but they're also an abuser. How

do you handle those two things. That's a conversation that we can have another time about whatever. But with Hogwarts Legacy, this is a game that is about the wizarding world created by a J. K. Rowling. This game was produced and released in a world completely aware of her own, you know, horrible thoughts and beliefs or turf nature, like everything about J. K. Rowling that we that we now

really know. It's also something that is forcing quote unquote forcing the hand of media giants and game reviewers to participate in the discourse of talking about this game. Some people handle that well. Some people absolutely are not. And I think one of the people that handled this really poorly is I g N. I g N is a company that you know has been reviewing games for years, is a huge, huge, huge company, and they gave this

game a nine out of ten. A nine out of ten, and the criteria for a game being a nine out of ten is this If we call again nine out of ten means it's amazing. If we call a game amazing, that means something about it seriously impressed us, whether it's an inspired new idea or an exceptional take on an old one. We expect to look at this game as

one of the highlights of its time and genre. And I just wanted to quickly pull out a couple of lines from the actual review of this game, just certain lines that stuck out to me as uh, maybe things that go counter to that very review not reflective of a nine out of ten not reflective ideas tradition correct. It may not be the most impressive technical achievement, and it is certainly cursed with a lack of enemy variety.

One Legacies plot has more holes than a fish net stocking and sort of just expects you to accept that its magical world makes no sense too if you're like me and you roll your eyes during moments when you're introduced to hundred years worth of dead characters lettering you from hatings. Three Legacies dicey performance suffered from just about every issue that makes I g m S Performance review team cry frame reading, consistency, weird issues with the lighting,

aggressive Poppin and more. Every door in Hogwarts has a brief loading screen. We're talking about stuff that is just like some of these things are day one patch stuff where it's like this stuff is gonna get fixed, it doesn't really matter. But then you have things like the plot doesn't make sense, the enemies are boring, the world is You're just full of exposition and nonsense, stuff that on a very base level takes a game out of

the category of amazing or unique. And that's only looking at this game on the level of it's just a regular game with no other political issues around it at all.

And I g N does a very very short skirting thing of well, here's how we talk about this game, and I'm not going to read the whole thing, but the long story short of their little like you know, of their of their small piece about why or why not the reviewing this game is because their whole thing is as a company, we have to talk about the video game as a video game, outside of politics, outside of discourse, and just how it presents itself as a video game. And that's something we have to do. And

I think that is bullshit. I don't believe that at all. I think The reality is more along the lines of another thing that I have linked in the stock here, and I promise I will get off my soapbox shortly, which is this. This is a tweet from Patrick Kleppick. Watching gaming outlets jump through rhetorical hoops to justify coverage on Hogwarts Legacy isn't surprising, but it would be more honest if they played it straight and just said quote, our shaky business model does not allow us to ignore

any game that might sell ten million copies. And unfortunately

that is the truth. If this company, we're talking about so much lost revenue, if they were to not cover this game that is undoubtedly going to sell well, because there are certain Harry Potter fans who, despite the fact that there are tons that really felt touched by the by you know, the book's narrative about you know, finding your truest and best version of yourself and striking down the forces of evil, how that applied to their own

lives and their own you know, self realization and self actualization. Despite all that, they're still going to cover this game that directly supports this awful turf woman who you know is making so much money off of this game. And that sucks. Um, and it's just um, yeah, so you know, long story short, people are really going out the work to say, well, it's okay if I review this game, or it's okay if I play this game, because man, it would sure be bad if all these developers who

worked on this game weren't able to eat. First of all, they get paid no matter what. It's not like all of them are getting royalties. And second of all, if that's your stance, you have to go and support literally everything. Go see every movie, eat at every restaurant, read every book, listen to every music album, because God forbid, the people who did the work on those things don't get the support that you think they deserve. That's the end of

my right. Well, speaking of music albums, which is what we call them here, Um, the Grammy's happened. The Grammys happened. And another thing that is just has the take machine in over running. It's just so it's it's lost, it's equilibrium. Um, I don't know, it's it was one of the those moments two where where it really seemed like, oh man, this is something that I don't care that much about,

but that everybody was in on it. Felt like, or at least there was a lot of people who were surprised when the Best Album Grammy went to the wrong person. For instance, um, when Song of the Year instead of going to Beyonce or Lizzo, although Lizzo one Record of the Year, which is also the categories are fucking confusing, ridiculous. Record of the Year is actually song of the Year, but as like including production, where a song of the

Year is just about songwriting. And they went to Bonnie Rate which is an artist that my parents were into when I was twelve, Like so she was like old at year. Some of those songs I've like listened back to them, been like they're pretty solid. But like I anytime the winner is announced and I have to be like, oh, I'm looking at the wrong year. This is this is a past year's list of winners. It's it's always just tricky, Like I didn't, I don't. I don't feel like Bonnie

Rates return captured the Zekeeys necessarily this year. Um, maybe it did. I I guess it did. Among the elderly folks who vote on the Grammys, though exactly is the point among the representative body that makes these decisions is

that do not matter. But last year, A Bad Bunny did not kind of got a lot of snubs despite having what a lot of people thought was, like, it feels like this will be the year that people look back on and say, well, bad Bunny is this was the artist who, like, whether it was reviews, you know, one of the best reviewed albums of the year when you look at apples like most played Songs or Spotify's

most played songs, like across the year. For like six months after he dropped his album, like, there were like five songs off this album in the top ten. Bad Bunny, Yeah, Badunny Bunny all the way down. Yeah, it's Bad Bunnies all the way down. Um so I don't know it, but again I'm just like, so ever since they gave the first best rap album too Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff over a Public Enemy and gave McLemore rap album over Good Kids at City, I mean, that's it,

that's it, that's I need, that's it. Where Ever since they picked a fight with Frank Ocean because he wouldn't go along with their weird like the Grammy musical performances, and we're gonna talk about one of them, which was like iconic that happened this year, Like they're big production numbers. It's very cool that these things are happening because they're able to get like amazing talent together because they are the powers that be in the music industry quite literally.

But the production is weird and overwrought and it's always like, I don't know, you can tell that there are live like music performance producers are like something who whatever the funk that is called that they're producing. There are people who are like that is really what we want to be the star of the show, right, and not Frank Ocean. So they picked a fright with Frank Ocean where like Frank actually doesn't like he he's his own worst enemy, um and we did not like enjoy working with him

and whatever. Yeah, it's just like shut the funk up, shut up. Yeah. But anyways, they did have a big thing the Rap fifty Years of Rap because raps fiftie anniversary debatable, but some people believe it's coming up shot a cool hurt, Yeah, cool Hirk back to school party, that cool hurricane his sister through that had like that

that was where the seed was planted. According to some people on one side of a very controversial subject exactly, but so they did like a you know, twenty minute or I don't I don't know how long it was because I can't find a clip of it because they're they're lugging this ship down. So I just find like individual clips of people taking shots from their phone of the TV for twenties seconds. I've seen multiple clips, and it really seemed to be something that people were responding to.

And again I ask those people, why are you watching the Grammy? I guess for moments like what exactly it's a you know, I think, uh, the I think one of the things that invites so much controversy as well, because I know another thing that people were getting the little Twitter fingers hot about was Harry Styles going up there and saying this doesn't happen to people like me often.

And it's just like, man, you really walked into that one, because you could very easily just accept your reward, hold up the trophy and go hey thanks, and no one would say shits. Yeah, they would have, I mean probably, but it's like, but it's not like you stiffed Beyonce. It's not like you stiffed bad Bunny. All these people are releasing music, and it's like, that's just it's their job.

They're supposed to release music. Like it's not like Harry Styles is being like, well, I better not release this album because I don't want to step on Beyonce maybe getting a Grammy. That's not how it works. But you know, you do get to choose what you go up there and say and how you represent yourself. And um, I think everybody can take a lesson, take a big old slice of humble pie, and just remember, don't go up there and say anything. Just don't don't say anything at all.

This voting body is only here to present awards to people for whatever reason. It never makes any sense. It's never good. But when you insert yourself into the discourse by saying some ship like that Harry Styles, Oh baby, I mean this is you know, you reap what you sew and that's what happened there. Just go up there and shut the funk up and take your trophy and

get drunk on the free meal and then go. The other moment that really seemed to stand out to people, or at least me, UM was singer and songwriter Adele was presented with um an Award for Best Pop Solo Performance category, Hell yeah. And presenting that award was of core Dwayne the Rock Johnson, the Rock, well, the one and only Dwayne the Rock Johnson, who handed her the grandphone. Uh and in announcing it, he opened the envelope, read it and said, get up here, best friend, adele, which

is how humans talk to one another. I also want to believe that in in in my head, one of his people was like, just call her bestie, because like that's what everybody likes these days. And he was like, what does that mean. It's like, it's your best friend. He's like, okay, cool, I got it. Yeah, for sure, get up your best friend. It's like I was supposed to be Bestiewayne just disconnected. Amazing. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be back with a couple more things,

and we're back and that. So the big Kyrie trade happened was bomb sham drop the WOA just of WOA

bombs happened. Um and Kyrie Irving, who famous anti semi right, yeah, okay, well who you know then was like, oh damn, my bad kind of I talked to a rabbi and that's all good now right Anyways, Uh, you know, requested or trade at that towards the end of last week, the nets were like, granted badly, good sir, no problem, And so he got traded to the Dallas Mavericks, who have one of the other best offensive players in the league, Luca don Chich. Mark Cuban is the owner Cuba Mr Cuba.

Mr Cubano himself one of my least favorites just in general in terms as people go. Sure, just from his his shark tankness and listening to him interviewed. He's got big, He's just got that that smug billionaire, nous energy billionairosity. But he apparently so there was somebody who did a mural of Luca looking lonely and was like, come please,

Mark Cuban, bring Luca help. He needs help type of thing, and Mark Cuban reached out to the muralist and said told like reprimanded them and told them that they were being rude. But then yeah, but he's just like soft bit he's so he's so like insecure, but like in a way where he wants to you know, project security and like strength. So baby, I know. So he then immediately went and made a questionable trade because neither of

them play great defense. They're both like ball dominant offensive players. Kyrier Bring has alienated every team that he's ever been a part of. Um, it's the mess. You can always, you know, get get an initial idea of how a trade has gone by how audience or how the fans of the various teams are reacting. And let's call this a win for the Nets. Homie Adam, big Nets fan shout out. Adam was like relief, finally relief, just relief. It's like it's like the the room has quieted down.

Everybody went, yeah, peace piece at last. Yeah, I don't know with you and also Untie netstands Yeah, I also think. I mean, I don't know how much time is left in Lucas contract, but something tells me that he's pretty frustrated as well, and like wants a wants a chip, wants something or is g t FO getting the f out of there? Mm hmm. Interesting that's what that stands for. Yes, these are the things that you need to explain to me. Yeah, and obviously, uh, you know, there was a horrible earthquake

that happened Turkey and Syria. M Yeah, killed more than three thousand four hundred people. We link off to a place where you can donate money to help people in those regions in footnotes or show notes. But yeah, I mean just a horrifying tragedy when that, uh, we should all be keeping our eye on and it's beasts. I mean, you know, just just very briefly as you know. Of course, a cautionary tale is that, like you know, it was two huge earthquakes back to back, and you see, you

know this is this is how fault lines work. Is that like it's so rarely just one quick action that's is of course it's scary, but it's just something to keep in mind and be prepared for. This might be a very l a centric thing here, but it's always a constant reminder of earthquake safety and the importance of mutual aid. And it's like we need to be able to reach out and help people when they need it. These natural disasters strike it completely random times and it's awful.

So you know, if there's ever time to reach out and help your friends across the world, now is the time to do it. So please help out. As a lifelong Angelina, is that something you remember like experiencing an earthquake, and then being like, oh, it's not done. Oh vividly. We had an earthquake, you know, probably a week and a half ago, where it rocked it first and then for the next five or ten minutes, I was like, hold fast, and there was and there was another. There

was another aftershock not long after. I mean, thankfully wasn't very strong. It was it was like, you know, the whole thing was okay, but you know, it's it's something that you always think about. It's always in the back of your mind. Yeah, I think I have earthquake blindness, Like my equilibrium is just such that I don't notice earthquakes when they happen. My wife will wake up and I'm just I have my hands up like I'm on

a roller coaster, you know. All right, those are some of the things that are trending on this Monday, February six. We are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccine, don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we will talk to you all tomorrow. B